Stands the Clock at Ten to Three . . .
If I had to name one major difference between my life in Zimbabwe and my present life here in Zambia, it would be this: that here I feel I don't have enough time and that my life lacks an adequate structure that would enable me to have more time. Some may say this is a natural consequence of having two young children and that I would feel this lack of time wherever I lived in the world. But it is more than that: it is something to do with the way time is measured and the importance placed on it. "For I have known them all already, known them all: /Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, / I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;" laments T.S. Eliot's Mr Prufrock, and although his song may suggest a certain weariness with the routine of life, it is this very routine that gave my life in Zimbabwe a sense of harmony and rhythm, however hard the situation became. When I was pregnant with my first child, and regularly regaled with ...